JACK RUSSELL'S GREAT WHITE To Play '30th-Anniversary Show' This Weekend

JACK RUSSELL'S GREAT WHITE will play a 30th-anniversary show on Saturday, May 12 at the Brixton in Redondo Beach, California. Also scheduled to appear are CRY WOLF, WELCOME TO CONCRETE and INTENSITY.

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JACK RUSSELL'S GREAT WHITE is not to be confused with the other touring version of GREAT WHITE, which features Mark Kendall (lead guitar),Scott Snyder (bass),Audie Desbrow (drums),Michael Lardie (guitar, keyboards) and Terry Ilous (lead vocals). That version of GREAT WHITE played its own 30th-anniversary show on March 22 at the Key Club in Hollywood, California.

In a recent interview with Full In Bloom, Russell slammed his former bandmates, stating, "[They're trying to put out] an album out as GREAT WHITE... that's not GREAT WHITE. Now they're having a 30th anniversary. Who are they kidding?! 30th anniversary of what? I fired them all. How can they have an anniversary if they're all fired? I fired them on December 10th. But they obviously don't want to be fired. Prior to that, they tried to file for the [GREAT WHITE] trademark without me. I could not believe it; my gut was so upset. I had tears in my eyes... I couldn't believe these guys were my friends. OK, I cost them some money but then again, I allowed them to go out with other singers. I called Jani [Lane, former WARRANT singer who passed away in August 2011] and said, 'Do me a favor and go out and fill in for me while I get well, so these guys don't lose money." Then Terry came in and I was cool with that, too. In retrospect, I should have said no...."You wait for me until I come back.' But that's not who I am....I don't want to stop them from earning a living, but they sure wanted to stop me. I'm getting e-mails from these guys: 'You can only go out there as Jack Russell, formerly of GREAT WHITE,' from a manager who has only been with the band for the last few years. Screw you, buddy. Honest to God, these moves that I am making are not out of animosity. I mean it. They are just business decisions. Those guys cannot be GREAT WHITE. There already are too many people going, 'Which version of the band are you in?' It's ridiculous. They need to call it something else. It's a different singer.....and the singer is the one element of the band you cannot change without completely changing the sound of the band. I don't care how great the singer is, or how bad. I don't care if you put Steven Tyler in RATT, it ain't gonna be RATT."

JACK RUSSELL'S GREAT WHITE is:

Jack Russell - Vocals
Robby Lochner (FIGHT) - Guitar
Matthew Johnson (DOCTOR M, JACK RUSSELL) - Guitar
Dario Seixas (FIREHOUSE, STEPHEN PEARCY) - Bass
Derrick Pontier (GREAT WHITE, SAMANTHA 7) - Drums

Russell filed a lawsuit against his estranged bandmates in March claiming that they fired him and stole the group's name while he was recovering from surgery to repair a perforated bowel. Named in the complaint were Kendall, Desbrow, Lardie and talent agency Bigg Time Entertainment. Kendall, Desbrow and Lardie responded with a 30-page counterclaim, filed on April 24 in a federal court in Los Angeles, accusing their former frontman of, among other things, "miss[ing] 80 performances in 18 months" before leaving the band; "irreparably damag[ing]" their "market reputation" by putting on performances that "are not up to the standard of GREAT WHITE; and misleading the public by stating that the musicians in Jack's new band "were once full members of GREAT WHITE." They also accuse Russell's new bandmates of "profit[ing] from their wrongful affiliation with the GREAT WHITE brand."

JACK RUSSELL'S GREAT WHITE will headline this summer's "America Rocks Tour" with support from FASTER PUSSYCAT, BULLETBOYS, PRETTY BOY FLOYD and LILLIAN AXE.